Whether you’ve been meaning to conquer crafting homemade pasta, learn the art of Eastern European pastry, perfect a flaky biscuit or simply enjoy a fun night out with cocktails and a chef-led meal, the Park City area has some compelling options. From resort-style culinary experiences to intimate neighborhood kitchens, here’s a look at local cooking, baking and wine classes worth keeping on your radar this summer and fall.
Bake with Lenka
There’s something deeply personal about baking from someone else’s grandmother’s recipes, which is exactly the experience Lenka Dhoju brings to her classes. A Slovak-born baker with a talent for teaching, she runs small, hands-on sessions focused on traditional Eastern European recipes.
“Kneading the dough with my grandma is what I remember any time I wander with my memories back to childhood,” Dhoju says. “I am blessed to share those memories with you through my baking classes.”
Her baking class centers on beloved central European staples: traditional Slovak kolaches and sweet babka bread. Students work with dough from scratch, explore a range of sweet fillings, and learn the shaping and baking techniques that make these pastries so distinct. It’s the kind of class where you leave with recipes you’ll use again and a new appreciation for just how much skill goes into something that looks simple.
Dhoju also teaches a cooking class dedicated to pirohy, vareniki and pelmeni, the beloved dumplings of Slovak, Ukrainian and Russian traditions. Participants learn to make authentic dumpling dough from scratch and practice traditional shaping and cooking techniques for both styles. Fillings range from classic potato and cheese to dill and mushroom as well as a sweet plum butter version that tends to be a crowd favorite. Both classes are relaxed and interactive — built around the kind of warm, memory-soaked cooking that’s hard to find elsewhere.
Deer Valley Creative Academy
The Deer Valley Creative Academy offers one of the most varied and established culinary lineups in the area. The academy blends cooking, baking and beverage programming with the polish you’d expect from a world-class resort, drawing on both in-house talent and outside collaborators to round out the calendar.
Classes typically happen on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in the afternoon. Past and recurring offerings have included fan-favorite resort recipes — like Deer Valley’s legendary carrot cake and turkey chili — as well as seasonal cooking classes and beverage experiences. The academy also has hosted specialty collaborations, including gin cocktail classes with Sara Sergent from Alpine Distilling, scratch pasta workshops with chefs from the resort’s annual Taste of Luxury events, and knife skills sessions with New West KnifeWorks.
Holiday-themed classes make regular appearances too, with gingerbread house workshops at Christmas, cake and cupcake classes for Valentine’s Day and barbecue sessions just in time for Fourth of July rounding out the seasonal lineup.
For families, the Little Chef Series gives kids their own space in the kitchen to make pizzas and decorate cookies, keeping young chefs happily busy without requiring any grown-up hovering.
Take note that registration closes 24 hours before each event and classes are nonrefundable, so plan accordingly.
Fox School of Wine
Not every class has to involve an apron. For those who prefer their education poured into a glass, Fox School of Wine offers a fun alternative to the typical wine tasting, one that is equal parts educational and entertaining and also surprisingly approachable for people who don’t consider themselves “wine people.”
Led by Executive Sommelier and Headmistress Kirsten Fox, alongside her team of wine professors, each guided tasting features five well-paced pours of hidden-gem wines that are priced under $45 and tend to get overlooked on liquor store shelves. Along the way, you’ll hear the stories behind each wine — the winery, the grapes, the region — and receive food pairing ideas to take home.
The highlight for many is the blind tasting challenge near the end of class, when Fox and her team pour a taste of a wine you’ve already tried and ask participants to identify it. It sounds intimidating, but that’s kind of the point. By that stage, you’ve spent enough time with the wines that you might just surprise yourself.
The school’s tagline says it best: Don’t we all deserve a little recess time? For anyone who has been meaning to learn more about wine without sitting through a stuffy lecture, this is a great place to start.
Hill’s Kitchen
The culinary arm of Hill Top Hospitality, Hill’s Kitchen, has built a growing learning program designed around one simple idea: make things easy for families, couples or friends who want to do something fun together without the fuss. “We got everything packaged and ready to go,” says Director of Marketing Skyler Beck. “All you need to do is just show up.”
Adult master classes are the flagship offering, and they’re exactly what a date night should be. Each class features a savory dish led by the executive or sous chef, a sweet course from the pastry chef and cocktails. Future master classes will follow holidays and special occasions, including Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. These are age 21-plus events that are capped at 30 guests and typically start around 5:30 p.m.
For tiny chefs, the Kids in the Kitchen series keeps children busy with hands-on decorating: sugar cookies, cupcakes, cakes and even pumpkins. The classes last no longer than an hour and are designed to be safe with no knives or heat involved. Class sizes max out at 15 kids.
Woodland Biscuit Company
For 10 years, Woodland Biscuit Company was one of those places people drove out of their way for the beloved spot in the Francis and Woodland area, where the biscuits were worth the wait and the vibe was completely its own. The restaurant has since closed, but founder Laurel Bartmess hasn’t stopped baking.
She’s channeled everything she loves about the place into a series of hands-on biscuit classes held in the original space.
Long before the restaurant opened, Saturday mornings meant baking biscuits with her two daughters, piling them with jam, trying different add-ins and just enjoying the ritual of it. That same warmth carries into her classes that cover everything from achieving the perfect flaky texture to cinnamon roll biscuits and herb-and-cheddar variations. With a maximum of six people per class, Bartmess sets up a station for each person, where they make a full batch with her guidance through every step.
“The atmosphere is forgiving by design,” she says. “You can kind of fail forward, meaning mistakes are part of the process, and nobody leaves feeling bad about a batch that didn’t quite rise.”
There’s a communal meal mid-class built around whatever just came out of the oven, and everyone leaves with their own biscuits in hand.
For larger groups, Bartmess offers a demonstration-style format where she does the cooking and guests eat and enjoy the experience together. Groups of around 10 also can pair up and share the experience of making biscuits. Private bookings for birthday gatherings, team events and other groups can be arranged with dates chosen to fit a specific schedule.
Bartmess is also developing new class formats, including a jam-making class and, potentially, an egg-and-omelet class, so more options are likely on the horizon.
